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Mawson, C.O.S., ed. (1870–1938). Roget’s International Thesaurus. 1922.

Class V. Words Releasing to the Voluntary Powers
Division (I) Individual Volition
Section V. Results of Voluntary Action

735. Adversity.

   NOUN:ADVERSITY, evil [See Evil]; failure [See Failure]; bad – ill -, evil -, adverse -, hard- -fortune, – hap, – luck, – lot; frowns of fortune; evil -dispensation, – star, – genius; ups and downs of life; the sport of fortune; broken fortunes; hard -case, – lines, – life; sea -, peck- of troubles; hell upon earth; slough of despond.
  pressure of the times, iron age, evil day, time out of joint; hard -, bad -, sad- times; rainy day, cloud, dark cloud, gathering clouds, ill wind; affliction (painfulness) [See Painfulness]; bitter -pill, – draft (or draught), – cup; care.
  TROUBLE, hardship, curse, blight, blast, load, pressure, humiliation.
  MISFORTUNE, misventure [archaic], mishap, mischance, misadventure, disaster, calamity, catastrophe; accident, casualty, cross, blow, trial, sorrow, visitation, infliction, reverse, check, contretemps [F.], pinch, rub; backset, comedown, setback.
  DOWNFALL, fall; losing game; falling &c. v.; ruination, ruinousness, undoing; extremity; ruin (destruction) [See Destruction].
   VERB:BE ILL OFF &c. adj.; go hard with; fall on evil, – days; go on ill; not prosper [See Prosperity].
  COME TO GRIEF, go downhill, go to rack and ruin (destruction) [See Destruction], go to the dogs [colloq.]; fall, – from one’s high estate; decay, sink, decline, go down in the world; have seen better days; bring down one’s gray hairs with sorrow to the grave; be all over with, be all up with [colloq.]; bring a wasp’s (or hornet’s) nest about one’s ears.
   ADJECTIVE:UNFORTUNATE, unblest, unhappy, unlucky, unprosperous, improsperous [obs.]; hoodooed [colloq., U. S.], Jonahed [slang], jinxed [slang], luckless, hapless; out of luck; in trouble, in a bad way, in an evil plight; under a cloud; clouded; ill off, badly off; in adverse circumstances; poor [See Poverty]; behindhand, down in the world, decayed, undone; on the road to ruin, on its last legs, on the wane; in one’s utmost need.
  ILL-FATED, ill-starred, ill-omened; planet-struck, devoted, doomed; inauspicious, unauspicious [rare], ominous, sinister, unpropitious; unfavorable; born -under an evil star, – with a wooden ladle in one’s mouth.
  ADVERSE, untoward; disastrous, calamitous, ruinous, dire, deplorable.
   ADVERB:if the worst come to the worst, as ill luck would have it, from bad to worse, out of the frying pan into the fire.
   QUOTATIONS:
  1. One’s star is on the wane.
  2. One’s luck turns, one’s luck fails.
  3. The game is up, one’s doom is sealed, the ground crumbles under one’s feet, sic transit gloria mundi, tant va la cruche à l’eau qu’ à la fin elle se casse.
  4. Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy.—Romeo and Juliet
  5. Amici probantur rebus adversis.
  6. Bien vengas mal si vienes solo.
  7. [Greek].—Periander
  8. Gaudet tentamine virtus.
  9. Curœ leves loquuntur ingentes stupent.
  10. Res est sacra miser.—Ovid
  11. Sempre il mal non vien per nuocere.
  12. Væ victis.—Livy
  13. Sweet are the uses of adversity.—As You Like It
  14. The man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very often has his flesh full of thorns.—Chesterton
  15. In the shadow of a great affliction.—Whittier